Follow the Bodies

Follow the Bodies

Article excerpt

In the early days of the Organs Watch project, when I was first looking into the rumours of 'body snatching' and 'organ stealing' among shantytown dwellers in northeast Brazil, my husband, then a clinical social worker at a large US paediatric hospital, returned home one evening elated and deeply moved. He had witnessed a paediatric transplant that had saved the life of a mortally ill youngster.

Michael was almost beside himself in sharing the miraculous event. Distracted, I looked up from my writing desk and replied: 'Really! Whose organ?' My husband's anger at my 'heartless' question, something only an oddball anthropologist would even think to ask, made me realize that, to the contrary, it was a question that had to be asked.